Israeli youths confess to Internet attack
The Associated Press
JERUSALEM (AP) Four Israeli youths in police custody have
admitted to creating and spreading the computer worm "Goner" by e-mail to attack hundreds of users around the world, police said Saturday.
Police arrested the high school students, ages 15 and 16, from
the northern city of Nahariya on Friday, said Meir Zohar, the head of the police computer crime squad.
The Internet worm first spread early this month to computers in Europe, especially in France and Germany. American anti-virus companies have reported more than 400 cases of Goner attacks worldwide. An Internet worm can spread to other computers on its own.
The Goner worm appears as an apparently harmless e-mail, with a subject line of "Hi" and a note asking the recipient to open an attached screen saver, which affects the computer if downloaded. The worm then spreads to all addresses in the computer's e-mail
system and through the instant messaging program ICQ and Internet chat tools.
Israeli police had been investigating the case for about a week, Zohar said. One of the youths had admitted creating the worm and the other three confessed to spreading it, he said.
Under Israeli law, the suspects could face between three and five years in jail if convicted, Zohar said.
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